How Do Family Conflicts Get Resolved?

I’ve been mediating conflicts that arise after someone passes away. Often the families fight over the assets. By the time they come to me for help the families have started court proceedings to settle an estate and the court sends them out to me to see if they can come to a resolution with the help of a neutral facilitator like myself.  It’s been my experience that often the dispute has little or nothing to do with the assets the family is fighting over and everything to do with the character of the relationships within the family.  Whether it’s a son suing a father for mishandling a favorite aunt’s bequests, siblings fighting over mishandling of their father’s money, or daughters suing to get their fair share of their father’s estate after he seemed to have left it all to a girlfriend of his, as a mediator I always try to create a space for the family to talk about the history of their relationships with each other and how this dispute came to be in the first place. It isn’t then a straight line to a resolution but it does create an opportunity for each family member to take a look at why they wound up in court and how they might have settle their disagreement some other way.